Johnny waved the weapon in front of the actor’s eyes. Then, with one swift snap, he cut the scarf, freeing Graus. The movement was so sudden that the sybarite stumbled back, and plopped directly onto a chair.
My savior wasn’t finished with him. He quickly approached the seated Graus, who seemed genuinely dazed. Drawing his right hand back, swiftly, Johnny slapped him in the face. The cracking sound echoed through the nearly empty place. Raising his mitt once more, Johnny backhanded him.
He was not about to stop. He made to strike again. There was something parental and sadistic about the beating. It seemed like child abuse, though Graus predated us all.
“That’s enough!” Katie yelled.
Johnny’s hand stopped in mid-threat. He glanced at his girlfriend, whose eyes pleaded with him, though vaguely. Then he looked at his victim, whose cheeks were beet red and whose lips emitted a tiny speck of blood. There was a pause before a decision was made.
“One more,” Graus whispered.
Johnny nodded. It was the hardest blow of all, and the actor’s head flipped back like a ricochet. Then it came forward and his chin settled on his chest, his wild hair hung in his eyes, and a trickle of blood discolored his chin.
There was silence for a second. Then, panting, Johnny looked down at the floor, where I was still lying.
“You okay, pal?” he asked me, with his usual concern.
I didn’t know what to say. I was relatively unhurt. But okay?
Johnny didn’t wait for me to answer. He held out a friendly hand—the palm red from beating Graus Menzies—and pulled me up.
“Sorry Graus couldn’t be more helpful,” he said. “I think he’ll open up when he knows you better.”
“Oh,” I said, shaken. “Okay. But will he be—”
“He’ll be fine,” Katie said, pleasant again. “This is just, you know, a thing we do.”
“Now go get washed up for dinner. You ever have ‘ricetable’? It’s a Dutch specialty.”
Katie was nodding, vigorously. “It’s delicious!” she agreed.
“Tastes good,” Graus even said, though very quietly.
His assistant rose from her doobis haze and administered to Graus. With a table napkin, Katie wiped off his face and then carefully recombed his hair. The older man found the strength to place his hands on her behind and squeeze.
Somewhat stunned, I sat and stared. But then the look on Johnny’s face became threatening again, after having shifted to gentleness. That made me move.
“Hey, I like your friend,” I heard Katie say, sincerely, as I left.
—
I headed back to my room, determined to flee Amsterdam. After Howie, Troy, Marthe, Thor, and Gratey, here was yet another curdled piece of the past, and one more weirdo family. How much did Graus know about Clown, anyway? Was it worth putting up with this? If I could only find the tape, I might not need anyone’s help, I could get the hell out.
I hesitated, recalling Johnny’s weird, mercurial personality. He had rescued me—twice, now. He seemed sincere about helping. At the same time, he was fast with fists and knives and willing to engage in erotic pain games with an iconic has-been. I also thought of Katie’s pretty face; she had said she liked me. Mixed feelings and motives slowed my resolve.
Then something stopped it entirely. Dena’s fax had arrived: excerpts from her father’s diary.
ALL FORTY-EIGHT PAGES OF THEM.
The elderly lady who owned the B&B, who had been so polite when I met her, now looked at me with disgust. Carrying the piles of paper that had jammed her machine, I went, mortified, to my room.
I laid the pages on my bed, as if they were pieces of a puzzle. Then, completely wiped out, I fell asleep beside them.
—
In the morning, I began to read.
The surviving entries in Ted Savitch’s diary scanned the last forty or so years of the twentieth century, though commented only briefly on most of it. There were passages ranging from two words in 1977 (Head cold!) to a longer discourse on money problems in 1990 (No light, all tunnel.).
The day of his wedding in 1968 inspired just two lines: Mistake of lifetime? Fingers crossed! Touchingly, a rapturous entry concerned the birth of his daughter, Dena, in 1974.
What little hands, what little feet!… You can see the whole future in her face … Whole question of support—money—looms, however …
The ensuing disintegration of his family life was painful. Two years later, there was a description of how he had separated, then returned, to his wife:
Trying to make a go … Not easy … Little Dena a heartbreaker … Sometimes think only happy time alone in movie theater … Guilt at thinking that, but true.
Movies were a frequent subject, and, as he mentioned, a rare occasion for happiness. His wife, it turned out, had no interest in them: Why must she make fun of it? He provided lots of capsule reviews that aped professional criticism: Godfather Two—Two long!… Peter Sellers is back as Clouseau and more clueless than ever!
There was also a long, impassioned account of an adulterous one-night stand in 1969 that started in a movie theater. Ted had attended a double feature at one of the now long-gone grind houses on Forty-second Street in Manhattan. The bill consisted of One More Time, a sequel reuniting the stars of 1968’s comedy Salt and Pepper, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. It was the only film Jerry Lewis directed in which he didn’t appear. The other picture was Ace High, a spaghetti western with Eli Wallach. The movies may have been minor, but the affair was Oscar-worthy:
She was in town from the suburbs … Married, like me … Sat next to me … Would I scare her off if I said something, I wondered? … Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford were mugging onscreen … “It’s no Salt and Pepper,” she whispered to me, suddenly, and she was right … Before the second feature, I kissed her … The hotel was only blocks away … We talked about movies before and after sex … It was incredible … We knew each other’s names, but that was all …
He had clearly found a kindred spirit. He seemed to follow up on the encounter, futilely. One entry recounts his wife asking about long-distance charges in the phone bill: How many times did I call and hang up? Pathetic, and now had to lie about it. Then the whole thing was lost to the past.
By 1980, he had left his family for good and lived alone. He didn’t write about secretly photographing Dena as she grew up. But he was clearly most comfortable just seeing her on film: My own wonderful little movie …
The rest of the diary no longer existed.
